


Some Do Tricks

by Infinite_Monkeys



Series: Family Ties [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Avengers, Fluff, Gen, Magic Tricks, POV Thor (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 11:28:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15862710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infinite_Monkeys/pseuds/Infinite_Monkeys
Summary: Loki learns a few magic tricks on the internet. No one is impressed.





	Some Do Tricks

**Author's Note:**

> All the standard disclaimers apply: I am not Marvel, I do not own Marvel, and I do not own these characters.
> 
> This is a part of a series, but you could probably read it by itself. 
> 
> Warning: everyone is on Earth and mostly happy.

Even back on Asgard, when Loki locked himself in his room for hours on end, it was hardly ever a good sign.    
  
Sometimes, especially as they grew older, it meant that his brother was in one of his moods, and Thor hated how helpless he felt in the face of those melancholy spells, especially since they never seemed to have an immediately identifiable source. Nothing to fight, nothing to smash, just a brother who was distant and out of sorts.   
  
(And smashing _him_  was definitely out of the question, thanks to a certain queenly mother who always seemed to find out about such things.)   
  
More often, though, it meant that Loki had found something that fascinated him and was learning a new skill. Which was fine when he emerged speaking an extinct dialect of old dwarfish or able to play the harp, and less fine when he had learned to make objects float and put the new skill to the test by setting Sif's shield drifting just out of her reach.    
  
Here on Midgard, Loki had been surprisingly engaged, both with Thor and with their Midgardian friends. True, he often lost himself in research, and since his time with Thanos he had almost obsessively tracked down and read every scrap of information they had on the Infinity Stones, but he typically came up for air at mealtimes, at least.    
  
So when JARVIS politely informed him that 'the other Mr. Odinson' had been in his room for more than forty-eight hours and had not eaten nor hardly moved in that time, Thor was understandably concerned.   
  
When he cautiously knocked on Loki's door and pushed his way in with a platter of food (an excuse), his brother didn't _seem_  sad. Instead, his attention was fixed on the computer, and one hand clutched a deck of playing cards that Clint had complained went missing a few days ago. Loki muttered a distracted thanks as Thor set the tray down, but made no move to eat.    
  
"What are you doing, brother?" Thor asked, trying and probably failing to make his voice sound curious rather than concerned.    
  
"You shall see when I am finished," he said, attention still obviously divided. That probably wasn't a good sign; Thor's introduction to most of Loki's newly acquired skills came in the form of a painful or embarrassing practical joke.    
  
"I brought grilled cheese and soup," he tried again, smiling encouragingly.    
  
Loki hummed, but didn't look up. Thor backed out slowly, shutting the door behind him, and resigned himself to coming out and picking up a probably-untouched tray of food in a few hours.    
  
As it turned out, there was no need. Loki emerged just before he lost the battle with himself over whether he should go check on him.    
  
"Choose a card," he demanded, fanning the pack between Thor and Bruce where they sat on the couch. Thor only gave him an odd look, but Bruce, apparently familiar with the custom, chose one of the cards and held it between his finger and thumb.   
  
"Memorize the card," Loki instructed, "then return it to the deck at random."    
  
Bruce stared at the card for a second, nodded, and slipped it back into the deck. Thor frowned. "I have learned far more interesting games than this from Hawkeye and the Black Widow," he said. "Perhaps you would like to learn to play Poker? I think you would enjoy it. It is of great advantage to be able to conceal your true feelings about the hand you are dealt."   
  
Loki frowned at him while shuffling the deck. The cards fell from one hand to the other in alternating chunks, flipping back and forth with surprising speed. "This isn't a game, Thor. It is a trick."   
  
"So you are cheating? Why should I want to play a game where I already know you are cheating? I would hardly have a chance to win."   
  
"You don't win a card trick, Thor," Bruce said with his signature patience. "They're for entertainment."   
  
"Oh." He smiled his most encouraging smile, which Loki didn't return. "Very well then. Entertain us."   
  
With a sharp motion he tossed the deck, and cards rained down around them like leaves in the fall, all save a single card that remained in his hand.    
  
Thor clapped his brother's shoulder, forcing himself to continue smiling. "Is it entertaining because you have created a large mess? Very amusing, brother."    
  
Loki scowled. "No, that isn't the trick."    
  
"Thank goodness." He relaxed. "I lied. It was not terribly amusing."   
  
He held the card aloft and addressed Bruce. "Is this your card?"    
  
Bruce, for his part, nodded politely.    
  
He closed the card between two flat hands and when he pulled them apart, they were empty.    
  
"Not bad," Bruce said. Thor frowned.    
  
"Was that the trick?"   
  
Loki shot him a dirty look. "Yes, Thor, that was the trick."   
  
"Oh."   
  
"I made the card disappear. Vanish," he said, twisting his fingers in an arcane gesture, "into thin air."   
  
Thor chuckled. "I have seen you vanish an entire herd of goats before, brother. Doing the same to a small piece of paper will hardly impress me."    
  
"I can make it reappear." Loki reached over and drew the card from Bruce's shirt pocket. Bruce raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment.    
  
"You made the goats reappear as well. In the Great Hall. During my name-day feast."    
  
Loki laughed, visibly brightening at the memory. "You demanded I give them back. As I recall, you were incredibly fond of those goats."    
  
"I didn't mean for you to let them loose on the banquet table," Thor pointed out.    
  
"Well, then, you should be more careful how you word your demands," Loki said without a hint of an apology. "The card trick is different, though. I'm not using my seidr."   
  
"But you could be," Thor said simply.    
  
Loki huffed, then clapped his hands together. When he pulled them apart a small white dove fluttered out, flapping wildly past their faces and towards the open window and freedom.    
  
Thor and Bruce both startled, and Thor's brief second of panic slowly ebbed as Bruce remained small and himself and not green. "Brother, what have I told you about playing tricks on Dr. Banner?"    
  
"I'm not to alarm him," Loki said as though it was an oft-repeated adage that grated at him. "You realize continually repeating that just makes me want to stab him and see what happens?"    
  
"You will not like him when he is angry," Thor said, faint stirrings of alarm picking up once more.   
  
"Don't worry." He huffed. "I won't do it, if only because I promised not to. I keep my promises even if they are made under duress."   
  
Thor scoffed. "It was hardly duress."   
  
"You were sitting on me at the time."   
  
"I hardly see how that is relevant."   
  
"We can see how relevant you think it is when an elephant is sitting on _your_  chest." He raised one hand threateningly, and it started to warp and distort, swelling larger and fading to a stony grey color.    
  
"Stop that," Bruce said, firmly pushing the limb down as it collapsed back to its usual appearance. "Stomping through here and starting an elephant versus Thor brawl right now would definitely alarm Bruce. Bruce is starting to feel alarmed just thinking about it. Jeesh, we should never have taken you to the zoo."    
  
Loki frowned rebelliously, but thankfully, he let it pass.    
  
"Come, brother," Thor said, stooping down to start collecting the cards from where they'd landed. "Don't you wish to show off your trick to the rest of the Avengers?"    
  
"Fine," he said, accepting the stack once Thor had gathered them up once more. "They'll certainly appreciate it more than you lot."   
  


* * *

  
  
They found Clint and Natasha a short ways off, engaged in a game of Scrabble. Loki pulled one hand up, letting the cards fall into the other like the water of a fountain into its basin, and then fanned them between the two assassins. "Pick a card."   
  
"Hey," Clint said, eyeing the deck. "Those are my cards!"   
  
"I borrowed them," Loki said blandly, raising his eyebrows as though to say 'and what're you going to do about it?'    
  
Clint spluttered. "I knew I didn't lose them. They were in my pocket!"    
  
Loki closed the fan of cards, pulled them back, and shrugged. "Natasha and I have been competing for some time to see who can add or remove the greatest number of objects from your pockets without attracting your notice."    
  
Clint whipped around to face Natasha with a betrayed look. Her face gave away nothing. "Nat?"   
  
"He only told you because he thinks he's ahead," she said calmly.   
  
"Thinks?"   
  
"I put six pencils in your pocket while he was talking."   
  
Clint reached into his back pocket and did, indeed, pull out six pencils, blinking at them in bemusement. Loki swore.    
  
Clint reached into his pocket again, his frown slowly growing into a scowl. "Did you take my keys?"   
  
Natasha fished in her own pocket and then tossed them back.      
  
"Well," Loki said, presenting the deck of cards once more. "Now that we've been through all of that, would you like to pick a card?"   
  
"I pick all of them, Clint proclaimed, taking the deck between finger and thumb and pulling it away, "because they're _mine_."    
  
Anyone who knew his brother could tell just by his expression he'd have the cards again within the hour. Clint only looked smug, though, and Thor briefly wondered if he should warn him.    
  
Something metallic flashed at the edge of his vision, and he turned. A coin spun through the air and landed back in Loki's palm. Surprisingly, it was an ordinary Midgardian quarter, nothing especially old or rare or valuable. "It is no matter," he said, "I have other tricks."   
  
Natasha leaned back. "Let's see it."    
  
"I'm going to disappear," he said, waved his arms, then turned and walked out the door. Thor sighed and followed.    
  


* * *

  
They found Tony sitting at the counter that both was and wasn't a bar. It had clearly been intended for that use, and it still showed in the rows of pristine glasses and the bottles tucked away on shelves behind the counter. However, it now sported a cappuccino machine and, against Tony's protests, a smoothie blender, and the detritus of domestic life was continually piling up on its edges in the form of magazines and unopened mail and keys and boxing gloves and spare bowstrings and other such odds and ends.    
  
When they approached Tony fixed them with a bleary stare that almost certainly meant he'd spent far too long locked in his workshop on a new project, and Thor silently hoped he was headed to bed soon and not just on the prowl for caffeine.    
  
"Watch this." Loki held out a coin in one hand, passed it back and forth several times, then threw his fingers open wide to show two empty palms. With a flourish he showed both sides of his hands, then snapped his fingers, holding the coin aloft.    
  
Tony took it from him and, without so much as blinking, grabbed a glass from the bar and slammed the coin through its seemingly solid bottom. "Sorry Rudolph," he said as he gave the glass a shake, clattering the coin around before pouring it out and handing it back, "but if it can be used to pick up chicks at a bar, Tony Stark mastered it long ago."   
  
Loki stared, dumbfounded, as Stark tipped some amber liquid into the glass and sat down with it.    
  
"That was most impressive, Stark," Thor said, barely holding back laughter that would probably have gotten him stabbed. Or maybe not; Loki had been far less stabby lately, which was probably a good thing.    
  
"Oh sure, so when he does it it's impressive," Loki muttered. He wandered off and Thor let him go, comfortable now that his reclusive spell had passed. If Thor knew him, he'd seek out some food, sleep for a day and a half, then emerge a more well-rested, centered version of himself.   
  
He stayed with Stark because it was bad manners to let a friend drink alone, and Thor ended up telling loud, boisterous stories until the man's head started nodding unevenly and he urged him off to bed.    
  


* * *

  
  
Thanks to Natasha, Thor knew that the scientists assigned to a select few SHIELD projects had a required training session in the city, and that Jane's team was among them. Loki's belief that the Infinity Stones and the one who sought to wield them (Thanos, a name Thor still could not think without an almost blinding anger) constituted a major threat had been taken seriously by SHIELD, and the value of Jane's research to defend against such threats had not gone unnoticed. Even if she never built a Bifrost-like machine for Midgard, her methods of monitoring the patterns of Yggdrasil's energy (not that she'd describe it that way, but that was, to the best of his understanding, what she was doing) could provide advance notice of an invasion from beyond the borders of the Nine. SHIELD intended to set up a handful of monitoring stations around the globe, and Jane had been flown in to instruct the other sites' teams personally.    
  
She would be busy doing her science, and that was why Thor did his best not to expect the phone to ring. That didn't mean he wasn't delighted when it did, though.    
  
He was even more delighted when she showed up in person, Darcy in tow, with half a day and all the night to kill before her morning flight.    
  
They had finished catching up and Tony had ordered pizza, causing everyone to settle into a comfortable, casual-party type atmosphere, when Loki pulled out his stolen deck of cards once more.    
  
"Would you like to see a bit of magic?" he asked casually. Jane caught her breath the way she did when she was excited and nodded.    
  
"Name the card of your choice." He shuffled the deck, and she leaned forward, attention fixed on the cascading cards.    
  
"King of Hearts," she said. He nodded, rapped the deck against the table, and caught the card when it flew into the air, presenting it with a flourish.    
  
He repeated the motion he had done earlier, clapping the card between his palms, and when he drew them apart it was gone. Thor almost chuckled at her surprised gasp.    
  
"That's amazing!" Jane's eyes sparkled, dancing in the way they did when she'd found an answer or, better yet, a new and interesting question. Loki preened.    
  
"See, _that_  is the appropriate response," he said pointedly to the room at large. Jane only took her eyes off his empty hands to glance around as though eager to share her excitement with somebody else.    
  
"So did you bend space-time around the card and make it disappear entirely, or just alter its optical properties to make it invisible?" she asked, nearly bouncing with suppressed energy.    
  
The smugness faded out of Loki's grin. "Neither," he said, "it is up my sleeve." He fished the card out to demonstrate, sliding it out neatly from between the folds of the fabric.    
  
"Oh. _Oh._ " Thor could tell that Jane was trying to hide her disappointment; he could also tell she wasn't doing it very well. "It's just that... Thor talks about how you can do magic, like _real_  magic, and I just thought..."   
  
Loki sighed. He drew his hands apart, suspending the card between them in a faint greenish field of seidr, and then, with no fanfare or warning, the card vanished. "I can do that, yes," he said in a patient, long-suffering voice that reminded Thor of their childhood tutors. "I stowed it in a fold of extra-dimensional space," he added when Jane leaned in, once more enthralled.    
  
"If you can make the card disappear for real, then why hide it up your sleeve?" The confusion in Jane's voice was as genuine as the wonder, and her face scrunched into a small frown.    
  
Loki threw his hands in the air, a motion of surrender, and stalked out.    
  


* * *

  
  
When Loki didn't reemerge within the hour, Thor set out to find him, a task made easier when JARVIS, before he even asked, pointed him towards the tower roof.    
  
He expected to find Loki sulking, or even practicing his tricks with a stubborn set to his jaw. He did not expect to find him sitting cross-legged across from Darcy Lewis, flipping cards while she cuddled a small white rabbit and followed his movements with rapt attention.    
  
Darcy noticed him first, and she greeted him with a small wave around the rabbit and a "s'up."    
  
"Darcy," he said, not quite hiding the surprise in his voice. "What are you doing up here?"    
  
"I like card tricks," she said simply. "Besides, it's nice to see one that isn't being done by some skeevy guy trying to pick me up in a bar."    
  
Loki smirked at him.    
  
"Plus," she said, lifting up her phone, "this dude somehow missed Criss Angel in his time stalking illusionists on YouTube. Gotta fill in the Mindfreak-shaped gaps in his education."   
  
"Watch this," Loki said, waving him over. "Darcy assured me this man is fully mortal and has not a drop of seidr, though I'm not certain I believe her."   
  
She threw up her hands, only remembering the rabbit at the last second and fumbling not to drop it. "Dude, would I lie to you?"   
  
"Not well. You have a tell."   
  
He scooted over to make room when Thor dropped down to sit beside him, and they watched the video together, tilting the tiny screen to avoid the glare from the sun.   
  
Loki fiddled with coins as they sat, making them vanish and reappear, and it was actually fairly impressive up close, especially if he truly was doing it without his seidr.    
  
"So how do you do that?" Thor asked, pointing to the coin that was in his brother's left hand but should, by all logic, currently be in his right.   
  
Loki grinned.    
  
"No," Darcy said suddenly. "Don't say it."   
  
"Say what?" Thor asked. Loki grinned wider.    
  
"It's cliched," she groaned. "Worse than that, it's corny."   
  
"Brother," he said, eyes wide with fake innocence. "A magician never reveals his secrets."   
  
  
  



End file.
